Imagine having a wooly mammoth in your backyard. Well, that vision might come true. On July 30, 2003, scientists made history. By using very advanced technology they were able to bring an extinct animal, the bucardo, back to life, if only for a few minutes. Doing this potentially problematic experiment could cause many dangers with the science and technology behind it. Why are scientists focusing on extinct animals when they could be using their time to help living animals? The money behind this experiment is also one of its major flaws. Resurrecting animals is not worth the time and money for what could happen.

Bringing endangered extinct animals back to life could cause catastrophic effects and unintended consequences. Using technology, scientists have come up with a way to bring a wooly mammoth back to life. However, this could potentially be a bad idea. If scientists bring back the woolly mammoth other animals that are now suffering from extinction could become even more in danger if we bring an entire new species to Southern Siberia. The closest thing to the woolly mammoth’s genes is an African Elephant, which means that scientists would be using elephant eggs, which could be very dangerous and could lead to extinction. If scientists use the DNA of African Elephants they would take the egg and they would make it so that it is close to the woolly mammoth until eventually it would become a wooly mammoth. However, African Elephants are endangered themselves, so it doesn’t make sense to take away their chances of reproduction. Moreover, the woolly mammoth disappeared 3,600 years ago. Scientists never really knew why they did go extinct but they figured out that it was most likely humans hunting them, or habitat loss. Another problem of bringing them back was that if humans killed them 3,600 years ago why wouldn’t poachers do it again? After all a lot of hunters would love to get their hands on an animal that has already been extinct. Humans are using a lot more of the animals’ habitat. Where would the woolly mammoth live? With all the new technology and resources we use that cause global warming this might make woolly mammoths go extinct again. Hurting animals isn’t worth it.

Technology has advanced so much that we can revive extinct animals; however we should focus on saving animals that are going extinct today. According to the IUCN Red List, 16,306 animals are going extinct because of us. Is it really a good idea to bring back an animal that went extinct 3,600 years ago? Over 800 species have gone extinct because of humans. Now we have come up with the technology to bring back an extinct animal. Shouldn’t we focus on how so many animals are going extinct today? If we bring back woolly mammoths we are tampering with nature. If we learned from our mistakes when the woolly mammoths went extinct we should try and correct those mistakes with animals that are still alive. Bringing woolly mammoths back could possibly be dangerous and could lead to even more animals’ extinction. The African elephant is going extinct. If scientists use the technology to modify the elephant egg this could lead to the african elephant extinction. When scientists are trying to recreate wooly mammoths they could be trying to come up with the technology to help animal extinction. Why are scientists not focusing on the animals that are suffering today?

Reviving extinct species is not only bad for endangered animals, it’s also incredibly expensive.Scientists that specialize in this idea have 454 machines each costing $500,000. Overall the cost is $227,000,000. There are so many things that are more productive than spending your money on something that might not work. 10 million dollars have been put into this experiment so far. How do scientists know it’s going to work? Why spend millions of dollars for something that might not work. The money for this project is so expensive and not worth it if something goes wrong.

This experiment could not just take away one animal’s life but hundreds. I hope I have made it clear that resurrecting animals is cruel and could have bad effects to the animal you resurrected and the animals that are going through extinction. You might not get a wooly mammoth in your backyard but at least you will still have elephants.